Originally Posted by
LapLap
It isn't "just two hours". It's a third of the limited time available to you within the precious 10am to 4pm sightseeing slot.
I don't plan itineraries that are bursting at the seams yet I still get up a lot earlier than you intend to in order to accomplish my own aims. I sincerely lack the imagination required to understand how you will manage.
Midweek in Hakone is like a weekend elsewhere. "Wednesday = closed" is just a rule of thumb for the slightly smaller attractions in this area. As a for instance; the Chimoto Yumochi shop is closed on Wednesdays. Thursdays is the other problem day, the Museum of Art is closed then.
At least you won't have to leave until quite late on Thursday, that makes a big difference to what you might achieve.
I hear what you're saying but we arrive at Hakone Yumoto at 2:07 PM.
We would have otherwise arrived at 12-Noon. It is indeed the difference of 2 hours and we would not have done more than a single activity before check-in on Tuesday regardless given the limited time. We'll now have roughly 2 hours to visit a museum or something.
You say the Museom of Art is closed on Thursday so we'll likely visit the Sekirakuen Garden and Moss Garden in the afternoon on arrival.
The next day we'll have lunch at the historic soba place in town and visit either POLA or Hakone Open-Air Museum; probably the former. The rest of the time will be spent indulging ourselves at GK.
The only other "musts" for me are the ropeway to Ōwakudani and the trek to Hakone Sekisho / Old Tōkaidō via the mountain and lake, as suggested by someone earlier in this thread. Both would seem very doable on our final day, don't you agree?
At some point we would like to visit Fujiya Hotel as well but that's really it. We'll walk around and explore the town a bit when we go to the soba place for lunch. I've been told by many people that a full day in Hakone is more than enough time. Granted there's a lot that I personally would like to see, but the difference of 2 hours doesn't make a huge impact. We would've been exhausted had we left much earlier and probably couldn't have lasted all day sightseeing. Keep in mind, we'll still be jetlagged at this point in our trip and we have some very late nights planned in Tokyo.